The initial symptoms will be overlooked. You figure a good gin oughta fix this. If not, a second one will. You repeat this process until you pass out. Next day, you wake up to realize that those annoying little symptoms persist. Perhaps you were wrong. Perhaps scotch is a more appropriate remedy. This goes on for a couple of days until you remember there's a big party coming up and you'd better be in good shape. After all, people have come to expect a certain level of performance from you.
You swallow your contempt for the medical caste and go see a doctor. You are told that alcohol and tobacco are single-handedly responsible for all of mankind's woes. You'd expect a man you see once a year to be less monothematic but are well aware that any remark will prolong the lecture indefinitely. You nod. Eventually, you leave with a bag full of antibiotics and a headache. You assume paying the bill is left to your discretion.
You are a physiological pacifist and believe in a body where booze and antibiotics can coexist. Alas, modern medicine disagrees. The party is approaching and there is no visible improvement in your condition. Suddenly, much to your surprise, you are struck by a pang of conscience (and you thought you had drowned that slimy little bastard!). You decide to stop drinking until the party. A part of you died on that day.
At home in the blur, gravitating toward the scent of intoxication. For the first couple of days, the cravings are intolerable and you are tempted to give it all up. You gather the little discipline you have left in you and try to focus on the noble goal you are pursuing: a great night of buffoonery. Sooner than you'd imagine the cravings vanish and you are left alone, with nothing in particular to focus on but your thoughts. That reminds you why you started drinking in the first place.
Thinking is less ethereal than it may appear. Judgment can only emerge in relation to past experience and it just so happens that a very large chunk of that experience took place in dark rooms with fluorescent lights, and in the company of intoxicated masses. Inevitably, your thoughts will revolve around booze, hookers and narcotics. Your state of withdrawal gives these thoughts a bitter tone. You try justifying your sobriety by making a mental list of every petty inconvenience you have encountered in your partygoer career.
Happy hours are always during the most inconvenient time of the day; you were accompanied by a gargoyle of a woman because she knew the bouncer one time too many; every brick, in every wall, in every gin-joint in town knows how you like your drink served, but the bartender keeps on filling your glass with ice cubes as if you had ordered a Diet Coke at McDonald's; the waitress hates you but you haven't mastered telekinesis yet and need her to get that drink to your table; gravity is never on your side; an honest drug dealer is a contradiction in terms; of the few people who understood what you said, none found it amusing; you are not looking at her, you are looking through her; come the first revealing rays of sunlight, only a prolongation of inebriation will enable you to filter out the imperfections in her; these playlists are getting really repetitive; if you try concealing being drunk at work, people should have the decency to conceal their sobriety in bars; you should stop pissing in your bed and blaming the dog for it; in whorehouses, the clock always seems to be ticking faster.
You keep riding this train of thought for days. You miss the party that caused your hiatus. People around you start worrying about the extensive knowledge of the porn industry you have developed. Then one day, just when you had started enjoying that codeine-laced cough syrup, your turn-of-last-century-coal-miner cough disappears. Your first sip of beer awakens the dormant beast. That sardonic smirk resurfaces in your face. That voice of reason goes back to hibernation. You send that "I'm back" group message.
Did you learn nothing over the past two weeks? Were all your inferences passive aggressive sophisms? Not necessarily. There are definitely drawbacks inherent to your lifestyle, but if it weren't for those, any prick would be able match your nocturnal achievements. You, on the other hand, have accepted a life of toxic abuse in the good and the bad. As the self-flatterer that you are, you find it necessary to reward yourself for such an insightful realization. And is there a better way of doing so than going out to celebrate?